


In Shades

by junkshopdisco



Category: Merlin (TV) RPF
Genre: M/M, no really, sunglasses porn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-10
Updated: 2017-04-10
Packaged: 2018-10-17 09:37:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10591326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/junkshopdisco/pseuds/junkshopdisco
Summary: Colin wonders why, when Bradley’s the one with the new sunglasses,he’sthe one seeing the world in an entirely different tint.





	

**Author's Note:**

> **Disclaimer:** Absolutely 100% fictional and simply the product of my twisted imagination. No offence is intended, and similarity to any actions, relationships and events in the real world is entirely coincidental.  
>  **Note:** Written as gifty comment porn for someone who wanted Bradley in his shades, and exceeded the comment part and kind of bailed on the porn.

It starts with an innocent enough enquiry, ‘are those new?’, and ends with a rather less innocent, ‘Jesus fucking Christ, Bradley, where did you learn to do that?’, and between those two questions many things happen, not all of them important.

What’s important is that one day, Bradley comes to set in these ridiculously flamboyant sunglasses that are clearly recently purchased, but somehow he makes it look like he’s been wearing them since the dawn of time. Why this is important or even noteworthy to Colin is something that keeps him up for four nights in a row. At first he surmises that it’s something to do with envy, that when _he_ wears sunglasses of any kind he looks and feels like a giant cock, and yet Bradley manages to wear shades that should make him look like a giant cock without looking like a cock at all. Or maybe he looks like so much of a cock that he stops looking like a cock and just looks really fucking cool. Or maybe he _does_ look like a cock, but it’s the right kind of cock, or the right kind of wrong kind of cock. Or – 

The only thing that matters is that the next time Colin sees him, his head is so full of the word _cock_ he can’t think of anything else, and Bradley notices and says, ‘why are you staring at me?’ and Colin panics and says, ‘are those new?’

They have a brief conversation about someone sitting on his old ones and snapping the arm, and all Colin can think is that he might want to send that person a gift basket. Bradley tells him about the shop he bought them in, but what’s important is that Colin isn’t listening because he’s too busy wondering why, when Bradley’s the one with the new sunglasses, _he’s_ the one seeing the world in an entirely different tint.

Two more nights of sleep are lost, and at 5.37 precisely on the second one, Colin realises that there are a lot of things about Bradley that should make him seem like a cock but don’t, and that he likes them all as much as he likes the sunglasses. He sits on _that_ revelation all morning like a king penguin with an egg, but then just before lunch Bradley throws himself down on the steps beside him, and Colin realises that the revelation nestled between his feet isn’t a nice, friendly egg. It’s a bomb.

He can’t _fancy_ Bradley. He – _can’t_.

His brain stalls on the inelegant conclusion that can or can’t he does, and Bradley pushes the damn glasses up his damn nose and grins at him. Sleep deprivation and a vague paranoia that the new glasses have given Bradley the ability to read minds sends Colin over the edge, and he snaps and says, ‘could you take those off? You look like a cock.’

Bradley’s jaw pulses with the kind of indignation he only usually displays in jest, and his retort, ‘You’re the one who looks like a cock, squinting like that’ is remarkably less cutting and heartfelt than is probably deserved. He disappears inside the _tnst tnst tnst_ of his iPod, and Colin sits there squinting in the sunshine and feeling like a bastard of the highest order, because it’s been a long morning and owing to sleep deprivation and all this egg business he fucked up the scene eight times and Bradley was actually kind of nice about it. He goes to say something, but in the next moment Bradley’s niceness just seems like a really good reason to hate him, so instead he gets up and storms off.

By the time he gets to catering he feels like a moron as well as a bastard, and actually all the squinting and angsting has kind of given him a headache, so he asks the woman who makes the tea if she’s got any aspirin. She tells him no, glances at the sky disapprovingly, and when she tells him he should get himself some sunglasses like Bradley’s he almost takes her head off with a plastic spoon. 

Nothing important happens for a while, and Colin’s grateful, because he can’t handle any more important and any more of this strange new tinted world where he hates Bradley and thinks about him constantly in various not-at-all-hate-filled scenarios at the same time. 

Two hours of deep breathing exercises and a really sugary tea convince him that he’s overreacting and that it might all go away on its own, but just when he’s talked himself into the idea that it might technically be possible to undo his thoughts with aversion therapy and whiskey, he runs into Bradley in his sunglasses. And he’s right back where he started, hating him for not being a cock or liking him for being the right kind and – whatever, he can see his own pathetic, confused, tortured face reflected over Bradley’s eyes and it’s just too fucking much. 

‘Seriously, can you just take those off?’  
‘What is _wrong_ with you?’  
‘It’s their fault!’  
‘What is?’

The egg bomb revelation and the surfeit of sugar and the fact that Bradley does look _really fucking cool_ in those stupid glasses collide and explode, and on a surge of reckless impulse Colin presses Bradley back against the wall and kisses him. Whatever happens next, he thinks, it can’t get any worse. Even if Bradley head butts him and he has to lie to the director and tell him he broke his nose molesting the goats in the courtyard, _it can’t get any worse_.

It doesn’t get worse. In fact, it gets a whole lot better, because rather than head butting him Bradley grabs a fistful of his costume and kisses him back, fitting their mouths together with unexpected enthusiasm and quite a lot of finesse. Colin’s brain logs the following thoughts in quick succession: Bradley apparently has no particular aversion to being accosted and kissed by someone who’s spent the day behaving like a bastard and a moron and probably tastes like builder’s tea and doubt; Bradley’s tongue against his gives him a hard-on faster than is probably dignified; it _is_ actually possible to go weak at the knees; they probably shouldn’t be doing this where they’re doing it.

Two minutes later, Colin knows a bunch of things that are as new as Bradley’s sunglasses: that he’s actually pretty decent at manhandling someone down a corridor; this castle has far too many doors that don’t fucking open; and what he’s always suspected about Bradley being really good at this kind of thing is true. Some doorknob relinquishes a room at last, and they stumble into it, Colin looking up through hazy lust to check they’re not surrounded by startled schoolchildren. The room’s full of old set and dust sheets like a creepy mansion in _Scooby Doo_. He doesn’t care, because now they’re alone and apparently Bradley likes that just as much as he does. Bradley fits his palm to Colin’s jaw, his fingertips pressing into his hair, and the kiss that follows is deep enough to make Colin’s groan unavoidable. Bradley’s other hand slides down over his arse and pulls him closer. He’s hard, and Colin’s head buzzes with the thought that he shouldn’t have wasted all that time thinking that Bradley might _be_ a cock when Bradley’s cock itself was there and waiting to be considered. 

He knows that the sensible thing to do is pull away, that this should probably be put on hold for later when they’re both not in costume and he’s half expecting Scooby and Shaggy to come barrelling through the door chased by evil henchmen. He inches back, but Bradley interprets that as invitation, tilts his head and presses his tongue to Colin’s neck, next covering the skin above his collarbone in hot, wet kisses.

When Colin manages a thought it’s _fuck it_ ; he hasn’t spent all week angsting and not sleeping and torturing himself to not follow this anywhere it wants to lead him. He pushes his hands under Bradley’s shirt and takes a tour of his chest with a burgeoning sense of possession, mapping every contour and then forgetting what he’s doing when Bradley undoes the insubstantial and rather loose fastenings on his trousers. He does the same, and then they’re slightly too naked for where they are but not as naked as Colin thinks they’d both like.

Exactly what happens next isn’t important. What’s important is that Colin ends up gripping onto some section of fake rampart with one hand for support and digging the fingernails of the other into Bradley’s thigh to keep him where he wants him. It’s urgent and exhilarating and made all the better by the occasional cold touch of Bradley’s sunglasses against the back of his neck and the side of his face. The ‘Jesus fucking Christ, Bradley, where did you learn to do that?’ is an immediately post-orgasmic impulse, which Colin sort-of regrets but not quite when Bradley laughs softly against his skin.

His fingers skim over Colin’s hip and turn him into a kiss. It’s deep and intense but somehow makes him feel really still for the first time in over a week. When he moves away and looks, he can see himself in the reflection of Bradley’s sunglasses. He looks not at all confused and tortured and actually kind of smug. Bradley notices what he’s looking at, and so Colin says, ‘I can’t believe you kept those on.’  
‘They’re really comfy. I forget I’m wearing them. Do you really think they make me look like a cock?’

Colin thinks about it, and then decides to just say what’s important.

‘No. Yes. I don’t know. Maybe – but I like them.’


End file.
